Myrna Pérez

Deputy Director

Myrna Pérez is Deputy Director of the Brennan Center's Democracy Program and leader of the Center’s Voting Rights and Elections project. An expert on voting rights and election administration, she is the author of several nationally recognized reports and articles, including Election Day Long Lines: Resource Allocation (Sept. 2014) and If Section 5 Falls: New Voting Implications (June 2013). Her work has been featured in media outlets across the country, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, and others. She has testified before several state legislatures on a variety of voting rights related issues. She is a lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School and has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Clinical Law at NYU School of Law.

Prior to joining the Brennan Center, Ms. Pérez was the Civil Rights Fellow at Relman, Dane & Colfax, a civil rights law firm in Washington, D.C. She graduated from Columbia Law School, where she was a Lowenstein Public Interest Fellow. Following law school, Ms. Pérez clerked for the Hon. Anita B. Brody of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and for the Hon. Julio M. Fuentes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She previously served as the Chair of the Election Law Committee of the City of New York Bar Association. Ms. Pérez is the recipient of several awards, including the Puerto Rican Bar Association Award for Excellence in Academia, the New Jersey League of Women Voters “Making Democracy Work” award, and was named one of 2014’s 50 Hispanic Influentials by Hispanic Business.

Ms. Pérez earned her undergraduate degree in Political Science from Yale University. She obtained a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, where she was the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Excellence in Public Service. Prior to law school, she was a Presidential Management Fellow, serving as a policy analyst for the United States Government Accounting Office on a range of issues, including housing and health care.

Selected Media Appearances

Myrna Pérez joined MSNBC to discuss long waits in the Wisconsin primary and new strict voter ID laws.

Myrna Pérez joined MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry to talk about the broad movement to suppress the vote.

Myrna Perez joins MSNBC's Weekends with Alex Witt to discuss the impact of the Supreme Court decision to allow the Texas Voter ID law to go into effect just a few weeks before the November midterm elections.

Myrna Pérez joins C-SPAN to talk about restoring voting rights to felons who have been released from prison.

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